Post-midterms, federal unions push for pay raise, restoration of bargaining rights

Following the drubbing of congressional Republicans in Tuesday’s midterm election, federal employee unions are hopeful that the change in control on Capitol Hill will precipitate action to roll back some of the Trump administration’s efforts to reshape the federal workforce.

As of Wednesday afternoon, Democrats were projected to hold at least a 54-seat majority in the Senate and at least 237 seats in the House, flipping both chambers. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, held a lead over Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, with around 70% of votes counted, while the margins in Mississippi’s race between Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith and Democrat Scott Colom remained razor-thin at press time.

“The American people sent a crystal-clear message in this election that they want major change in Washington,” said American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley in statement Wednesday. “They are tired of this administration’s corruption, abuse of power and systemic assault on our shared government that began with Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and continues to this day. I share their sentiments and look forward to the 120th Congress passing legislation to correct the injustices of the past few years and pulling DOGE corruption up by its roots.”

Union leaders said Wednesday that while they have a laundry list of Trump-era personnel and labor policies to target, two in particular are at the top of their agenda: unwinding two executive orders that stripped two-thirds of the federal workforce of their collective bargaining rights, and overriding President Trump’s planned 2027 pay freeze for most civilian federal employees.

“Specifically, I urge the incoming Congress to pass legislation overturning President Trump’s orders from last year that illegally eliminated collective bargaining rights for more than a million federal employees,” Kelley said. “Our nation’s civil servants work with dignity and honor to serve the American public, and stripping them of fundamental workplace rights and protections was an egregious wrongdoing that must be corrected.”

Matt Biggs, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, told Government Executive that some lawmakers’ inaction in the face of the administration’s push to erode their collective bargaining and due process rights motivated federal workers to oust them, like long-time Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine.

“I’ll go back to Susan Collins, who lost: she’s chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee and she writes the appropriations bills,” Biggs said. “Why didn’t she write a defund [of Trump’s anti-union EOs] into those? I think not using that power to at least try to appeal these EOs hurt her with the many federal employees in her state.”

Biggs said that while some priorities, like contesting the White House’s impoundment of congressionally appropriated funds, will have to wait until the new Congress is seated in January, he is hopeful that lawmakers in both parties will agree to move forward on other priorities when they return to Washington next week. He noted that the GOP-controlled House already has language in its draft of the still pending 2027 National Defense Authorization Act nullifying Trump’s union EO for the Defense Department workforce.

“We’re going to play the game, get on the field and do everything we can to reverse the union EOs in the lame duck,” he said. “We fully expect this to be a top priority. And the pay raise is huge as well—we’re really pushing hard for that to be addressed in an appropriations bill or [continuing resolution].”

Some local union leaders are also calling on the new Congress to stop agency-specific policies, like the proposed downsizing or elimination of the Education Department.

“For nearly two years, the Trump administration has stopped at nothing—ignoring court orders, Congress and federal law—to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education,” said Rachel Gittleman, president of AFGE Local 252. “They have unlawfully fired hardworking public servants, carelessly transferred our programs to other federal agencies with no expertise, cancelled billions of dollars in critical education grants and sown chaos for students, families and communities. Congress has the power and the will of the voters to hold this administration accountable for its lawlessness.”